Today, the South Pole aka Antarctica is a super giant land mass that is very cold and is almost entirely covered with ice and snow. But, back in the days of the dinosaurs, the south pole; Antarctica was very warm, ice free, and the great land mass continent had lush forests and some swamps. Dinosaurs and giant amphibians roamed all throughout Antarctica. The first fossils found there are those of Plesiosaurs, marine reptiles with long necks, discovered on Seymour Island in 1982. The first dinosaur fossil is of an anklosaur, discovered on James Ross Island in 1986. There were Hadrosaurs, land animals, approximately 29 feet in height
In April 2016, paleontologists announced an enormous discovery of various types of dinosaurs that cane out of James Ross Island from an area, which a few months before, involved unearthing more than a metric ton of fossils. Biologist James Salisbury, of the University if Queensland, was one of thirteen scientists involved with the canoeing. Most of the fossils were dated to be from 71 million years old to 67 million years old, because those are the ages of the rocks the fossils were found in. Here are four of the most prominently found South Pole dinosaurs:
1. Antarctopelta Oliveroi (ankylosaur). Lived 83 million years ago to 72 million years ago. Length: 20 feet. Diet: Herbivirous.
2. Trinisaura Santemarta ensis. Lived: 83 million years ago to 72 million years ago. Length: 5 feet.
3. GlaciaLisaurus Hammeri. Lived: 190 million years ago, length: 20 feet to 25 feet. Creature was a saurapodum orph. Diet: Herbivorous.
4. Cryolophosaurys Elliott. Lived: 190 million years ago. Length: 20 feet. Had a crested head. Diet: Carnivorous.
At the North Pole, there are no dinosaur discoveries that have been made. The North Pole, (unlike its South Pole, commonly called as Antarctica), has no land mass and today is very massive floating ice.
Sometimes people confuse the North Pole with the Arctic. The geographical North Pole is a much higher northerly elevated territory at the top of the world’s Hemisphere. The north pole exists within the arctic circle, an area that includes 8 countries including portions of Alaska and Canada, Finland, Russia, Greenland, North Asia, the Scandinavian Peninsula, and Iceland. Recently, science suggests marine dinosaurs and marine animals may have been living in the then warm waters millions of years ago.
Recent discoveries taken from underground core samples in the underwater mountain range – Lomonosov Ridge, located in northerly Arctic regions contain evidence that plants and ancient cypress and pine trees, in the area flourished. The arctic was extremely warm and wet 55 million years ago. Perhaps having an average temperature of 74 degrees F.
The warmer lands could come from a number of scenarios that would include climate change due to increased peaks of carbon dioxide and the movements of the tectonic plates and mantle convection.
The mountain range comprising the Lomonsov ridge broke away from the Eurasian continent about 57 million years ago. Due to such findings there had to be marine dinosaurs and marine animals living near the North Pole back in time. Perhaps including Mosasaur sharks, plesiosaurs, icthyosaurs, octopuses, squids, snails and clams to name a few. The North Pole, yields many secret treasures, under the ice, to paletonologists, just waiting to be discovered.
